Let’s say I come to your house while you’re sitting at home and doing nothing wrong, and I kick you out of your house. Not only do I kick you out, but I also put you in your own backyard, build a fence around you and tell you to stay. I don’t let you have food or water and the conditions are miserable. You stay there for quite sometime and then happen to spot a rock. You think to yourself that if you throw the rock, you have the ability to make my life a little less comfortable inside your house, so you throw it and break a window. In retaliation, I kill you.

Our society stands for democracy: equality for all, under the law as well as in practice. This is what our country spreads around the world, or at least the thought of it. We push for it with our staunchest allies and criticize our enemies for not having a democracy. Perhaps nowhere else in the world is the United States‘ stance more hypocritical than in Israel.

Here is a country that, by name, is a democracy, but in actuality doesn’t follow democratic principles at all. They deny access to highways and other roads to those who aren’t Jewish. There are roads that native Palestinians aren’t allowed to drive on, a wall separating Israel and its occupied lands and hundreds of checkpoints in Palestinian land to prevent Palestinians from moving and traveling.

The US-Israel love reminds us that Israel is a ‘beacon of light’ for democracy in the Middle East, where people can live and don’t have to worry about being oppressed. False.

Israel is in violation of countless UN resolutions and countless more international laws. Building an apartheid wall is against international law and a UN resolution. Occupying the West Bank is against international law and a UN resolution. Building a blockade to prevent the delivery of food, medicine and other essential necessities is against international law. Israel‘s use of white phosphorus ‘- and it has been proven that they’ve used it ‘- is against international law, the Fourth Geneva Convention, as well as countless other international regulations.

Let’s say I was to tell you that tomorrow I’m going to walk up to you and throw mud at you. But this wasn’t just any type of mud, it was mud that could burn you down to your bone and burn everything you have and everyone you know. What would you do?

That’s exactly what Israel did. They sent leaflets letting people know that they were going to bomb their house. Sounds quite heroic right? To let people know so that they can escape ‘- except for one thing, the people had no where to go. Israel had bombed the UN compounds, sealed the borders and continued to bomb civilians.

Resistance in the face of occupation is legal under international law, not even to mention that countless laws and resolutions that were violated in order to begin the occupation.

The United States loves to promote free trade in which capitalism can flourish. False.

According to the Bureau of Industry and Security and the U.S. Department of Commerce, ‘The Bureau is charged with administering and enforcing the Antiboycott Laws under the Export Administration Act. Those laws discourage, and in some circumstances, prohibit U.S. companies from furthering or supporting the boycott of Israel sponsored by the Arab League and certain Muslim countries, including complying with certain requests for information designed to verify compliance with the boycott.’

Is that free trade? No. Now, before you say that they are just doing it to protect Israel from the Muslim countries, I say ‘so what?’

So what if the countries want to boycott Israel? After all, Israel is in violation of international law, UN resolutions and the Fourth Geneva Convention. So what if the Muslim countries want to boycott Israel, is there something anti-democratic about that?

What’s funny to me is that some obscure federal law to prevent boycotts on Israel is enforced. Yet, when it comes time to enforce international law, the United States is silent. And the silence of the United States on the issue is deafening.

Now before a group comes together and begins to call me
anti-Semitic, let me tell you this, I love Jews. I enjoy the company of Jews and I work very closely with Jews on this campus. I am not criticizing the Jewish people. Rather, I am criticizing the United States in Israel.

Subhan Tariq is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].